Beyond the Ariel

Jump to Latest
T

tomtom

Member
Joined 2006
Pano said:
I keep dreaming about them being the ne plus ultra for my multi-cell horns. But the the measurements aren't selling me.
Click to expand...

The berilium doesnt solve phase plug problems - which is why they looks very look alike. IMO clever designs like new JBL D2 is much better. It is really new and clever concept.

Berilium is BRUTEFORCE solution how to improve old concept. Almost all Compression drivers looks like 1928 WE. There is nothig wrong about it except 10+khz. Which i thing doesnt bother WE at that time :)
 
J

Jmmlc

R.I.P.
Joined 2005
tomtom said:
The berilium doesnt solve phase plug problems - which is why they looks very look alike. IMO clever designs like new JBL D2 is much better. It is really new and clever concept.

Berilium is BRUTEFORCE solution how to improve old concept. Almost all Compression drivers looks like 1928 WE. There is nothig wrong about it except 10+khz. Which i thing doesnt bother WE at that time :)
Click to expand...

Hello,

JBL D2 seems to me inspired both by Radian 's dual diaphragm drivers and by Western Electric's tweeter WE597 from 1929.

http://d27vj430nutdmd.cloudfront.net/19395/99548/99548-32.pdf

http://soundup.ru/images/stories/ar...ter-1929/w-e-596a-597a-bostwick-tweeter-3.jpg

Nothing new Under the sun...

Best regards from Paris, France

Jean-Michel Le Cléac'h
 
Pano

Pano

Administrator
Joined 2004
Paid Member
Since we are talking about compression driver diaphragm material, how about the polymer versions? I've heard a couple, I liked the Celestion 1". Now I see that Faital-Pro offer some with Neo magnets. On paper they look really good, E.G. the new HF145/146. Anyone have any experience with them?
 
T

tomtom

Member
Joined 2006
Off course BE will be better. But i really dont know if we can hear it. Take for example good headphones like Sennheiser HD 650 or 800. They are completely non pistonic above 10khz and nobody found them agresive or unnatural or whatever people call breakup behavior with related problems /IMD etc/

Paul we run similar system /my is also big inwall/ and more i know about and more experienced im - the more i think it is all about dispersion in 8khz and up region.

About plastic material - PANO. I think they just dont work with bigger diaphragms - 2inch is limit for them. They are too unpistonic in bigger drivers.
This can work with direct radiators but not with compression drivers.
As soon as diaphragm is unpistonic there are cancellation as different slots see different phase - F.e outer slot is positive and inner is negative.

Sorry for my english i cannot it describe better - but you sure know what i mean.

D2 driver has effectively just one slot.

For JMLC

Off course principle about D2 was long known - but nobody put it together in way JBL did.
 
B

boldname

Member
Joined 2011
Lynn Olson said:
Not to step on any toes, but the new speaker is a successor to the Ariel because I say it is. I've lived with my Ariels for 20 years, was there at the creation, and know it better than anyone. A long time ago, I hoped the European driver industry would gradually make drivers flatter, with better impulse response, and more efficient, if only by a few dB.

It didn't happen. Compared to the 5.5" Vifa, the responses of newer drivers got rougher, the impulse response worse, and efficiency did not go up ... in some cases, it went down. The only vendor that kept the same line of development as the original Vifa and Scan-Speak drivers was Skaaning. I was tempted to develop a Mark II Ariel based on the Skaaning drivers, but after avoiding horns for so long, it was time to learn something about them. Bjorn Kolbrek and Martin Seddon were my mentors, and the AH425 resulted from that collaboration.

I've heard the first prototypes based on the AH425, the GPA 288 and Radian 745Neo (Aluminum) drivers, and the GPA 416-Alnico. Despite the dissimilar technology, the prototypes sound surprisingly close to Ariels ... like a very big Ariel with another 10 dB of headroom. Depth is somewhat greater, width is about the same, and resolution is much higher. They are even less suited for 200W Class AB transistor amps than the Ariels.

The Ariels were designed to mimic the sound of stacked Quad ESL57's. They measure similarly, and I've had many Quad owners over the years tell me the Ariels sound remarkably close to ESL57's ... but with 5 to 10 dB more headroom and better imaging.

It might seem a little weird to imagine a loudspeaker that has sonic aspects of stacked Quad ESL57's, the Ariels, and a very smooth Altec, but that's what the new speaker sounds like.

The prototypes do not sound like Avante-Gardes, Acapellas, Cessaro, the JBL DD66000 Everest, or Volti speakers. The bass region has similarities to the Oswald's Mill speakers, since the bass drivers are similar (and might be the same). If the AE drivers I heard at the RMAF were representative (they were used in about 5 or 6 systems being exhibited), the GPA Alnico's sound pretty different, in a way that's hard to describe.

As for aluminum versus beryllium diaphragms, I'll choose the material that has the fastest decay time, provided that the subjective aspects are acceptable. The AH425 has very low coloration, so what you hear the sound is the sound of the diaphragm (and phase plug). Unless there is something very wrong with Materion's version of beryllium, that'll be my choice.

The Materion beryllium is rolled from metal sheets that are compressed on rollers, instead of being vapor-deposited like the TAD diaphragms. As a result, the crystal structure is very different, and the Materion beryllium is not brittle; in fact, you can punch through the sheet with a ballpoint pen, and it doesn't fracture.

At the RMAF, I picked up 3" diaphragms intended for the 745Neo, and the Beryllium seemed to be half the weight of aluminum. It's a very light metal, much lighter than aluminum, and has better self-damping. The Be tuning forks are much quieter than the aluminum or titanium tuning forks, and damps much more quickly. It really does behave differently, so I expect different sonics as well. Hard to imagine that lighter weight, improved self-damping, and freedom from metal fatigue would be sonic demerits, but the proof is in the listening.
Click to expand...

The Quad ELS57 is where I started in the sixties. And I have been through a gamut of other things but circled back in a speakers with the new materials in use to do justice to modern digital and analogue reproduction.

From your comments I feel I should give the horns a go but the raggedness of the waterfall results and no step test I feel the treble may be a backwardstep unless you have auditioned the Radian Neo's to match or surpass direct drivers at below 110dB. The comments posted today have opened out some unsurprising doubts about Be and large voice coils.

I would prefer a smaller voice coil and stiff dome with greater excursion to achieve a smoother treble at least to 15KHz. Say a 1 1/4" dome. And it need not be Be as the break up could be engineered over 20KHz if that is enough. Sweetness and musicality around 5KHz to 12 KHz to me is critical and the Be and Al 950 waterfalls are too ragged. When does any serious listening need the sound levels used in domestic HiFi. Professional live reinf and replay are different. Aluminium aint beat yet. Yes, I agree with Pano about stored energy. Rise time is important too but too often the amp and all the LCR stuff in the way cannot deliver.
 
T

tomtom

Member
Joined 2006
I saw the real measurement - and it was very ugly... unfortunately i dont know where /inet/

D2 - infact is very simple device - and can be manufactured very cheap. No berilium no Titan-nitride - Just cheap plastic - ring phgrame. No complicated multislot Phase plug etc...

Im looking forward to some cheap ripof :) or people version from JBL at least.

But... as i say before - IMO - everything UHF is about dispersion pattern and powerresponse. So PANOs multicell can be very good no matter of driver.
 
J

Jmmlc

R.I.P.
Joined 2005
badman said:
Hi Jean-Michel- the bottom WE tweeter doesn't seem similar to me- can you explain what it catching your eye? The WE seems like just a (compression style) dome tweeter on a horn with a rudimentary phase plug...

http://soundup.ru/images/stories/ar...ter-1929/w-e-596a-597a-bostwick-tweeter-3.jpg
Click to expand...

Hello,

I don't consider the bullet as a real phase plug (even if I know one could considered it like that).

Then about the coaxial "ring" structure that we find also in compression drivers from Radian it seems in fact that Radian is building compression drivers and diaphragms for JBL (I hope I am not wrong on that).

Best regards from Paris,

Jean-Michel Le Cléac'h
 
Last edited:
T

tomtom

Member
Joined 2006
the only coaxial ring radiator /and coaxial compression driver in general/ are BMS.

do i miss something? Im realy curious about other designs.

The closest thing to D2 are those BMS coaxial... But they are coaxial and D2 is oposite pushing with common output phase plug /bullet/ for both drivers - so not really coax. Phragms are very small i think 1,75 inch /and just ring /no dome/ - so very little breakup mode if any at all/ and displacement is achieved from "boxer pushing" of two of them.
 
Robh3606

Robh3606

Member
Joined 2002
Here's a waterfall of a magnesium diaphram in a JBL 476Mg. This is on PTH-1010 waveguide no network 1/12 smoothing.

Rob:)
 

Attachments

  • Waterfall 476Mg #2.jpg
    Waterfall 476Mg #2.jpg
    198.1 KB · Views: 532
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom